Commondreams.org, By: Lauren McCauley, 10/30/2013

In what many are calling the new "ground zero" in the national fight against fracking, the toxic gas and oil extracting process is on the ballot in four Colorado towns where citizens are taking on the heavyweights of the fossil fuel industry. Following the example of Longmont, which last year became the first Colorado city to ban fracking, next Wednesday, voters in Boulder, Broomfield, Lafayette and Fort Collins will have the opportunity to choose whether or not they support the controversial extraction method of shale oil and gas in their communities.

For more on this story visit www.commondreams.org

Global Exchange, By Caitlin Kawaguchi, 10/14/2013

When J. Stephen Cleghorn realized that Paradise Gardens and Farm, his certified-organic farm in Pennsylvania that sits above the Marcellus Shale formation, was at risk of being “fracked” for shale gas extraction, he knew he had to act. But he did more than just act against fracking when he became the first private property owner in the United States to use a deed easement recognizing the Rights of Nature to ban all activities that would do systemic harm to the ecosystem both above and deep below the surface of his farm.

“We wanted to preserve organic agriculture on these 50 acres to be sure, but also wanted to employ this recognition of Rights of Nature to deter any activity that would threaten those rights at the surface in the deep biosphere below this farm,” said Cleghorn.

Learn more: For more information visit www.alternet.org

Grist, By: John Upton, 09/02/2013

One oil spill in his community was more than enough for Kalamazoo resident Christopher Wahmhoff. To protest Enbridge’s replacement of the pipeline that burst along a Michigan riverbank in 2010, Wahmhoff spent 10 hours of his 35th birthday inside the new pipe, slowing construction for a single day in June.

Now Wahmhoff, a member of the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands [aka MI-CATS], has been charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor, charges that could see him put behind bars for more than two years. “It was worth it, without a doubt,” he told the Battle Creek Enquirer on Tuesday following a preliminary hearing before a district judge. “We got awareness out.”

For more on this story visit www.earthfirstnews.wordpress.com

Earthfirstnews.wordpress.com, By: nodashforcash.org, 08/19/2013

Anti-fracking protestors Reclaim the Power have targeted Cuadrilla at locations across the UK shutting down their HQ in Lichfield, their PR company in London, and Balcombe drill site. Campaigners condemned violent policing at the gates of the drill site, where police charged, shoved and kettled a group that included children, people in wheelchairs, pensioners, MP Caroline Lucas, and journalists.

Protestor Ewa Jasiewicz, who is at the kettle said: “This an outrageously aggressive response to a day of principled civil disobedience. All of our actions have safety, dignity and respect at their core. Cuadrilla and the government were desperate to discredit fracking opponents. We offered them no aggression so they are creating it themselves.”

For more on this story visit www.earthfirstnews.wordpress.com

Rawstory.com, By: Agence France-Presse, 07/11/2013

Large earthquakes around the world have been found to trigger tremors at US sites where wastewater from gas drilling operations is injected into the ground, a US study said Thursday. For instance, the massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake in Japan in 2011 set off a swarm of earthquakes in the western Texas town of Snyder near the Cogdell oil field, culminating in a 4.5 magnitude quake there about six months later, said the research in the journal Science.

Similarly, small to mid-sized quakes were observed near active injection wells in Prague, Oklahoma following an 8.8 magnitude quake in Chile in 2010. Uncommon seismic activity stirred that region 16 hours after the Chile quake with a 4.1 magnitude tremor, and it continued until a 5.7 magnitude quake in November 2011, said researchers at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.